Where Are You Going for the Feast?
By Jim Franks
Even though the Feast of Tabernacles is still more than seven months away, the most commonly asked question in the Church these days is, “Where are you going for the Feast?” On my last two church visits, I must have been asked this question more than a dozen times.
This shows us how important the Feast is within the Church. We focus much attention on planning from one Feast to the next. Now the time has finally arrived for you to begin making your plans, including choosing a site. Registration won’t begin until the Days of Unleavened Bread, but your planning begins now!
We don’t believe there is a choice as to whether we will go to the Feast (unless we are unable to attend because of health, distance or financial reasons). We clearly see that Feast attendance is commanded in Leviticus 23:41: “You shall keep it as a feast to the LORD for seven days in the year. It shall be a statute forever in your generations. You shall celebrate it in the seventh month” (emphasis added throughout).
And we are told in Deuteronomy 14:22-25, “You shall truly tithe all the increase of your grain that the field produces year by year. And you shall eat before the LORD your God, in the place where He chooses to make His name abide, the tithe of your grain and your new wine and your oil, of the firstborn of your herds and your flocks, that you may learn to fear the LORD your God always. But if the journey is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry the tithe, or if the place where the LORD your God chooses to put His name is too far from you, when the LORD your God has blessed you, then you shall exchange it for money, take the money in your hand, and go to the place which the LORD your God chooses.”
Enjoy your Feast planning! And whatever site you choose, I pray that you and your family will find the 2017 Feast of Tabernacles spiritually uplifting and rewarding!